Horodniceanu: 7 line extension may be delayed until early 2014

If all goes according to plan, the 7 line extension to the Far West Side is set to enter revenue service in 23 months, long before the Hudson Yards development sees the light of day. Yet, as with many MTA construction projects, all does not often go according to plan, and the extension that was once promised as part of a 2012 Olympics bid may not be ready until early 2014, MTA Capital Construction chief Michael Horodniceanu said yesterday.

As amNew York reports, Horodniceanu spoke at yesterday’s MTA Board committee meetings and explained that a few undisclosed problems may delay the project two or three months into 2014. Instead of being revenue-ready by December 2013, the project could be ready only for testing by then. The full extent of the delays will be revealed at next month’s meeting, but Horodniceanu did promise that the project’s funding partner “will ride a train” to Hudson Yards.

For the MTA, these delays are old hat even as Horodniceanu has vowed to keep the megaprojects on target. For what it’s worth, though, the 7 line extension, despite this delay, is still under budget by “tens of millions” of dollars. It’s also short a station, but that is a well-beaten dead horse at this point.

I’m kind of nervous about Bloomberg being replaced. I can see plenty of problems with him, including some that would make me never, ever vote for him. But on transport and environmental issues, he’s moderately okay, at least relatively speaking, and it’s a safe bet that the Democrat who will probably replace him will be more akin to Anthony Weiner – without the image problem – or John Liu.

Agreed. I’ve come full-circle on Bloomberg, particurly when I see the nightmarish incarnations of David Dinkins (Christie Quinn) or Rod Blagovitch (John Liu) jockeying to replace him.

NYC depends on being the financial and cultural capital of the world. We need a mayor who understands that and is willing to support the policies and infrastructure (read: Transit and Cops) to support that.

He won’t be able to buy himself a fourth term. He could barely buy himself a third term – he won by 5 points, against a sacrificial lamb. If Quinn and Weiner hadn’t been scared of his money and hadn’t pulled out, whichever of them won the primary would probably have been mayor right now.

That’s right! It would have made more sense to do ONLY the 10th Ave./41st St. station, instead of only the other one. That way, we would all be saying NOW that the 11th Ave./34th St. station might not be necessary after all, given that the Javits Center’s days are numbered, and so maybe it’s just as well that they did not build it.

It’s true that some New York subways were built on completely undeveloped land, but what is regarded as the first “subway” was built through what was already some of the densest urban land use in human history. Manhattan’s population peaked in 1915, IIRC, at somewhere north of 2 million. It’s at about 1.6M today.

The UWS had a fair amount of development, most of it along 9th Avenue, but even on Broadway, there were buildings at some of the main street corners. Columbia had already relocated to Morningside Heights.

And the city was growing at much higher rates than today, so expecting development to catch up with the subway was logical. The subway planners actually underestimated urban growth – they thought they’d be able to accommodate detached single-family houses on the land opened up, rather than six-story apartment buildings.

Obviously the growth rates of the industrial revolution are unachievable today, but how long to do you suppose it would take to fill an additional 100,000 units of housing at market prices? Given where prices are even in bleh neighborhoods, I would guess not long.

My impression is everything from zoning to parking to anti-transit policies conspires against discovering the answer. Either way, to some extent we constrain ourselves growth-wise, for better or for worse.

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[…] we checked in on the 7 line extension, MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu had warned of a potential delay to mid-2014. Due to some extenuating circumstances, he expected the one-stop, $2.1 billion […]

[…] said the 7 line would likely be in testing by the end of 2013 and open for revenue service in 2014. In early 2013, Mayor Bloomberg threatened to push the 7 train himself if it meant running trains […]